The present invention relates to an improved performance appraisal system. More particularly, the present invention relates to a unique visual interface and a system for converting information acquired by that interface to a performance ranking for use in producing a performance appraisal for one or more employees.
The so called 360.degree. performance appraisals are used to gather performance information concerning each employee being rated from coworkers, direct reports and from supervisors. Thus, 360.degree. performance appraisals provide benefits over other types of performance appraisal systems by placing an increased emphasis on teamwork and by providing internal customers with a voice in the performance appraisal of employees who service them. In addition, the so called 360.degree. performance appraisal serves to balance the personal biases of any single appraiser. The 360.degree. performance appraisals are becoming more popular as corporate organizations are getting flatter. Some implications of such flattened organizational structure are that managers are no longer just the subject matter experts or authority figures that they once were. Rather, managers are now also helpers and information brokers.
The implications of such changing roles of managers dictate a change in the methodology for conducting performance appraisals. For example, job specifications are continually changing, thus not allowing enough time for employers to write elaborate performance criteria, then measure and then communicate performance appraisals effectively. Instead, performance appraisals are now conducted using employees who work together since those employees have the necessary information, that is, the direct observations of the performance of the employee being appraised. In addition, the evolving business management structure has resulted in managers who often supervise people whose expertise in their areas of responsibility is superior to that of the supervisor. It is difficult for supervisors to evaluate employees who have greater expertise in those areas than they do. Therefore, it is useful to utilize a fellow expert employee as a rater so that the supervisor can more easily assess the employee's work using another employee who knows the subject area.
Finally as with all performance appraisals, since supervisors are human, they are susceptible to harshness or favoritism. The use of multiple raters can balance supervisors' points of view and provide a more realistic appraisal of the employee being rated.
One of the difficulties of the use of the so called 360.degree. performance appraisal is that prior to the present invention, that type of performance appraisal usually entails a complex and time consuming process which requires gathering enough relevant information about each performer from enough people within a company. It also requires the translation of the responses about each performer or employee into coherent individual performance evaluations. It is also important, and frequently difficult with 360.degree. performance appraisals, to present the performance results to supervisors in an effective, coherent and useful manner.
In the past, the use of 360.degree. performance appraisals utilizing multi-raters was also very costly. For example, the performance appraisal process required a great many writings or meetings to gather performance evaluation from all raters or evaluators. It is often necessary to create, distribute and recover documents from 3 to 10 raters for each employee being evaluated.
Yet another difficulty with implementing 360.degree. performance appraisal systems is that the use of multi-rater appraisals can result in inconsistent results. Such inconsistent results can be caused by, among other things, the fact that each supervisor approaches the multi-rater process in a different manner.
In light of the shortcomings of prior art 360.degree. as well as other performance appraisal systems, the present invention provides for the simplified entry processing of evaluations. The present invention is designed to provide a confidential way for raters to voice their opinions, thereby increasing the accuracy of the data collected. The present invention provides for an easy to use interface for gathering and processing the data necessary to provide an accurate performance appraisal of the employee being rated. Effects from common scoring problems such as central tendency, leniency and shallow, noisy or inconsistent data are eliminated by the present invention.
The present invention also provides useable and meaningful results of the performance appraisal to multiple individuals. Each of the employees being rated is provided with a clear picture of how raters view their performance. Supervisors are provided with an appraisal which has an intuitive and easily understandable relationship to the collected evaluation input data.
In order to accomplish the foregoing objectives, the present invention is structured as a network-based, multi-rater, performance appraisal system. It utilizes an intuitive visual rater interface which simplifies the task of evaluating the performance of multiple employees. The performance appraisal system of the present invention helps to identify core competencies of employees and helps link performance in those competencies to company objectives. The performance appraisal system of the present invention functions to present information in a detailed, yet easily understood, format that maintains the visual paradigm established by the visual rater interface.